September 2, 2011

As military "coups" go, the one this weekend in Honduras was strangely, well, democratic. The military didn't oust President Manuel Zelaya on its own but instead followed an order of the Supreme Court. It also quickly turned power over to the president of the Honduran Congress, a man from the same party as Mr. Zelaya. The legislature and legal authorities all remain intact.

We mention these not so small details because they are being overlooked as the world, including the U.S. President, denounces tiny Honduras in a way that it never has, say, Iran. President Obama is joining the U.N., Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez and other model democrats in demanding that Mr. Zelaya be allowed to return from exile and restored to power. Maybe it's time to sort the real from the phony Latin American democrats.

134 comments:

Obama's foreign policy, beginning with his shameful dismantling of 50 years worth of State craft in Eastern Europe, has been the unsung disaster of his term. He's a menace and a stuttering clusterfuck of a miserable failure.

No balls, and really not much brains either. Of all Obama's appointments, the most telling was Eric Holder. That was a huge red flag to me and this kind of horseshit is consistent w/ Holder's and Obama's world view.

Obama brought in people to the State Department who were still angry over what Reagan did in Nicaragua and El Salvador in the early 1980s. It was a given that they and the president would take the side of the guy reflexively hostile to the United States in the Honduras battle, because ideologically they've been in sympathy with that position for over three decades.

Same thing with Egypt -- if the U.S. administrations since Sadat's assassination have been comfortable with Mubarak, than whoever opposes Hosni must be better (the Libyan situation is more muddles, since Britain and France basically dragged Obama kicking and screaming into the kerfufle, but the outcome may be the same, where what comes after Ghaddafi may be worse than what he's been for the past decade, just like what came after the Shah in Iran probably wasn't what the Carter State Department was expecting).

Obama brought in people to the State Department who were still angry over what Reagan did in Nicaragua and El Salvador in the early 1980s. It was a given that they and the president would take the side of the guy reflexively hostile to the United States in the Honduras battle, because ideologically they've been in sympathy with that position for over three decades.

Daniel Ortega was credibly accused of child molestation. Yet he remains President of Nicaragua. What does it say about the left that they freely chose such a man to implement their policies? Is there such a dearth of leadership that such flawed men as Chavez, Castro, Ortega are considered beacons rather than warning lights?.....These guys with the red berets and revolutionary rhetoric are variations on the theme of generals with epaulets and too many medals. Different beat, same melody......Latin America. Muslim lands. The only lesson that they have learned from history is that it is necessary to keep repeating it until you get it right. Perserverance-- that's the key. Zelaya's revolution. That's the one that will lead to utopia.

@Pastafarian--Thanks to your brilliant comment, I now see how this all fits together: Carol_Herman & Herman Carol, Bradley & Prosser, garage mahal & Original Mike, "Mary" & Althouse. And most of all, bubbles:

The bubble universe model proposes that different regions of this inflationary universe (termed a multiverse) decayed to a true vacuum state at different times, with decaying regions corresponding to "sub"- universes not in causal contact with each other and resulting in different physical laws in different regions....

...more than 150 Mexicans and at least one U.S. government agent, are dead because of Gunwalker. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) videotaped the sale of the gun that killed Border Patrol agent and military veteran Brian Terry. Weapons waltzed into Mexico under its “Operation Fast and Furious” have begun turning up in American cities. A second program called “Operation Castaway” has been discovered, walking guns into Honduras. MS-13, the most dangerous gang in the world, has strong ties to Honduras.Guess we'll have to wait and see

Utopia is a greek word. It means NEVER NEVER LAND. It's a place for the imagination that has never, ever existed down here on earth.

Besides, democracy is messy.

It doesn't lend itself to letting groups of people decide anything. By definition, groups of people ARGUE.

Our Founding Fathers took for granted that humans would do everything to fight for power ... And, say just about anything. Which is allowed under the First Amendment. Then? They decided IF a politician got just a smidgen over 50% of the vote ... the whole pie was his.

Only on a criminal court jury ... did 12 people have to come to a unanimous decision. And, judges aren't allowed to interfere with these deliberations. Where it's been tried, the judge get reversed.

We've made the systems worse by making them so expensive! Why should it cost so much money to defend yourself in court; or to run for office?

Honduras was always one of the most confusing US foreign policy actions in my memory. I never really understood why the Obama administration backed the horse it did. They were so obviously wrong, and that never changed from beginning to end.

Well, at least Ann sees that the only person to whom one can reasonably compare such a world-historical figure is O himself. No other frame of reference could possibly work. Depending on your political views, the themes of such a comparison might be: (1) O 'grew in office' and 'climbed the learning curve'; or (2) for O, the preferred demons are always on the 'right'; or (3) O's only interest is in the 'reset' button for the Muslim Middle East; or (4) Zelaya had worshipped at the O altar, and earned the support of our Narcissist-in-Chief; or (5) the MidEast matters, Honduras not so much; or (6) the misjudgment about Honduras was all Hillary's (or Condi's or Bush's) fault, the clear-eyed response now is pure O-driven.

Whjat's odd about so much of the O-commentary now is its retrospective tone -- it's as if we've already written him off, he's yesterday's news, and we're waiting for the new guy to show up. Things will improve when reality catches up and all of O-dom is in the past.

At the bottom, here, isn't it possible that no matter what obama says, he isn't going to be believed?

Didn't his credibility go out the window long ago? (For me it "went" ... when he attacked the Cambridge cop for "acting stupidly.") Silent beer summit and all ... Obama lost credence. And, his friend, the Professor Gates, never really came off as anything but an affirmative action jerk. With a haaarvahd credential.

No one at haarvahd spoke up. No one there thought they'd have to do much, except wave their credential around. Which was a stupid mistake!

Lying is about the worst position you could get caught in. As kids are taught at an early age. Lying is very bad business.

But that's actually what we are watching!

It's like "Lying Is Punting." You don't think you're losing much ... because where's the ball? It's hardly moving at all.

Once you get caught, lying, however, you can never, ever get back to an honest position.

And, perhaps? Perhaps this is why people pay attention to the "mechanics" employed in announcing yet another Obama speech. If this was anybody else? And, there was an honest expression for it? It would be called a "gaffe."

It's a combox, not your thesis on the wheat market from Peoria State, Scott the Hermanizer--which-- I suspect--even though spell-checked still sucked like, er, Annie Coulter on a coke binge in Ellay sucks.

That was the initial confirmation the Obama was at heart a Marxist dictator under cover of an election victory that next demanded the Constitution be changed to make him "elected President for Life" and re-distributor of all property rights.

So Hondurans resisted the traitor legally and beat him in their Supreme Court.

That makes one wonder what a SCOTUS with a 5/4 Obama appointed cabal would do.

And Hillary went along 100% with that attack on the Honduran Democratic government. She just pretended made up crap and the MSM went giddily along with her.

Then Obama and Hillary made the USA punish Honduras as an example of what happens to constitutional Governments who resist being taken over by a Marxist Thug For Life.

It's a combox, not your thesis on the wheat market from Peoria State, Scott the Hermanizer--which-- I suspect--even though spell-checked still sucked like, er, Annie Coulter on a coke binge in Ellay sucks.

It says he is a leftist, reacting like Pavlov's dog to the caterwauls of the BiCoastal and Urban Left.

It also portrays him as a man who has no real plan short of creating a Socialist dream, a Government run economy. He is oblivious to the realities of the world including human nature.

As to compare how he reacted in 2009 to the Middle East this summer, it still fits his pattern. Syria, a far worse actor and human rights scourge than Qaddafi could ever be, is allowed to crack skulls, shoot citizens and overall just provide some really solid oppression with nary any action, short of some 'terse' diplomatic missives.

In Libya, a place with economic value, but little National Security value, becomes ground zero for US non-involvement involvement.

In Egypt we had to remove immediately the US's man, Mubarek, without having a viable back up plan. If he had been allowed to stay on to September, as was originally voiced, we might have been able to create a strong alternative to the Islamist, who are now taking hold of power there.

Overall, he doubled down on the least risky, but least rewarding situation to involve our interests. But those are exactly the places where the left wanted us to go after, Egypt (helped us with Al Qaeda) and Libya, because well sometimes a dictator needs to be thrown under the bus.

Why? People may and do ask, "Is he doing this on purpose or is he just not understanding". Given his enormous track record of not accomplishing anything on his own but through the efforts of others (see his election, his book writing, his community organizing efforts) I would answer it does not matter why, just that he is incapable of being President of this country and Jan 20, 2013 cannot come soon enough.

Our experiment in Progressivism is over and once again a painful lesson is left as a reminder why we cannot let Leftist run anything we value.

The middle classes, as a general rule, always flee dictators. And, for the Cubans who came to Miami, they brought with them, not just their families, but their educations. Doctors. Lawyers. Engineers. Where all Miami really had were retired Jewish folk.

This is what really changed Florida!

Middle class people, for all their struggles when they have to get started, again, supply an ENGINE. Supply ECONOMIC GROWTH! America's been good at doing that, too.

Cuba is a basket case. Made worse as soon as the Soviet's collapsed. It's actually a 3rd world nation, 90 miles from our southern tip.

Back in Cuba? THEY MISS THEIR RELATIVES WHO CAME TO AMERICA! They envy them, as well. Castro isn't loved! He's FEARED!

Obama, meanwhile, got to be president. Not on many gifts ... But he did get the bonus of votes that surprised McCain. Because McCain couldn't imagine a black man winning the 2008 race.

As to the left tilt ... On board the democrapic ship ... there are those who are falling overboard!

We really don't have a left in this country that will "catch them." Because for a left to exist you need communists. And, we don't even have a communist plot. Because Karl Marx ain't buried here.

Pelosi also bedevils the left. (I'm sure a lot of them can't imagine why she didn't quit when she lost her Speaker's Office.) But I'd bet in da' House, Boehner's preferred.

Bad management ... usually makes those inside the company ... more terrified than you think!

you mean like arrest people without warrants, or order death squads to torture and kill people, like nuns? Yeah some were upset.

No, they weren't. If warrant-less arrests, torture, and murder were what was upsetting them, they'd have been anti-Castro, anti-Guevara, and anti-Ortega, too. Since they weren't, it's pretty easy to tell what was upsetting them were not any of the crimes of the right wingers in Latin America, but merely which side of the Cold War the right wingers were on.

Nope. "BO" is not a centrist! Never was! Even his credential is from haavahd. Not from our heartland, at all.

What's made worse is that obama is seen as a liar.

His speeches fail.

And, you can't prop them up on grecian pillars.

The left is failing to attract talent!

That the schlemiel can win another 4 years? Why not? In bad times the "tramp" was the most successful hollywood actor on earth. Everyone knew his name! And, everyone sitting in a seat ... got to enjoy feeling superior.

Personally, I can't wait for the truth to get out of bed and start lacing up his shoelaces.

I know a lot of "anarchist" and most of them are just poseurs. They have no idea what anarchy means. For instance see "anarchist" rioting in favor of government benefits. Or "anarchists" that defend left wing tyrants.

The central doctrine of anarchists is the elimination of government and especially central control by government.

Your little Rush Limbozo labels and moralist TP crap are pure shit, Pigmortal (and you look like another Anny (let me call the server admin. and see who you really are--I have a good idea (ie, it's Raul, aka Hoss-let!!! though a right wing day for his bipolar-ness).

Ann Barnhardt, the well-known Colorado firebrand who once said of Gen. Petraeus, "I'll give him one of my balls then he'd have one and I'd still have two," insists on her blog, and at the Western Rifle Shooters Association, at Free Republic, Flopping Aces, Freedom Torch, and many other right wing blogs too numerous and wearisome to mention here, that the Gunwalker scandal, Fast and Furious, is the ultimate false flag operation with two prongs, one out of Tulsa and the other out of Miami, where the operation is known as 'Castaway', intended to flood Mexico and South America with ill-gotten US arms and allow the dead bodies of Mexican citizens, police, South Americans, and eventually North Americans to pile up, in an attempt to overturn the second amendment. This theory is supported by the numbers persistently cited by DOJ and by State Dept. that are patently demonstrably false. According to Barnhardt's information Manuel Zelaya was essential to the Miami operation and that explains the truly weird insistence of US State Dept. on his reinstatement.

Your little Rush Limbozo labels and moralist TP crap are pure shit, Pigmortal (and you look like another Anny (let me call the server admin. and see who you really are--I have a good idea (ie, it's Raul, aka Hoss-let!!! though a right wing day for his bipolar-ness).

nada mas que basura

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English motherfucker, do you speak it?

Please stop shitting your pants long enough to form a coherent sentence.

I'm not gonna say the US hasn't backed some shady governments, but Chile is a fully democratic, highly prosperous and free society.

If you're talking about Pinochet, which you probably are, then also recall that Chile was a well-functioning republic for a long time before Allende came to power with a small plurality. The Pinochet era was deplorable in many ways, but Chileans today mostly prefer simply not to talk about it. The unrest under Allende was widespread--it was not just some CIA-initiated coup--and Chileans like where they've ended up. Everybody would prefer that there hadn't been "disappearances," for sure, but the '70s in Chile were a lot more complicated than what's implied by the phrase "banana republic."

wrong again, Pigmortal--you're a little teabugger- mormon racist, who can't read, and has never read a real book in its life. Now, crawl back to yr LogCabin Romney sites, joto

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I don't think you understand that no one can figure out what you are saying. You're a mumbling, bumbling retard of a blog poster and your weaksauce insults don't sting because nobody is bothered by the ineffectual rambling of a pathetic figure.

The central doctrine of anarchists is the elimination of government and especially central control by government.

Actually, no. The most prominent school of anarchism is social anarchism. Under this banner gather the anarchists who hate private property, but love collectivism. Theoretically such communities are self-managing and democratic, but in practice, once you damn the individual, your democracy means nothing.

Which "O" of a year ago and which "O" of today? His intentionally manipulated pseudo-schizophrenia give you an infinte number of pairs to match up here? Do you want to match the pair that say or the pairs that do? Do you want to match the Thurs pairs or the Fri after the news cycle pairs? How about the pairs speaking to the base or the pairs speaking to the base's "enemies" (that would be everyone else in America)....

Consistency is not a goal of the "O". Manipulation to nudge the means to reach the ends is the long term goal. In that respect "O", has not changed even a nano-smidge (this number inverts from the direction the national debt is going) ad infinitum.

Some say J is an ignorant idiot. Others say J is an anti-American douchebag. I reject this false choice. There is a reasonable middle ground. People of good will can say J is an ignorant idiot and an anti American douchebag.

The central doctrine of anarchists is the elimination of government and especially central control by government.

Actually, no. The most prominent school of anarchism is social anarchism. Under this banner gather the anarchists who hate private property, but love collectivism. Theoretically such communities are self-managing and democratic, but in practice, once you damn the individual, your democracy means nothing.

Does J claim to be an anarchist? Maybe he is. I never read him.

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Yeah, I already touched on that. Social anarchism is just warmed over marxism, because anarchy is "cooler".

Well, it's very simple. The Honduran military, Supreme Court and the Legislature were upholding the idea of rule-of-law and preventing Zelaya from following the Chavez method of gaining power. Can't have that! Leftist dictators must be allowed to carry out their designs!

As for Iran, it is ruled by a bunch of brutal, unelected, theocratic dictators. Unlike Honduras, it is violently anti-American and is actively engaged in killing Americans all over the world. And yes, Iran really is a theocracy.

See the difference? Now it is easy to understand - Obama seems to prefer the latter system. Especially when left-leaning dictators are in charge. Good thing we have the 22nd Amendment.

"...he seems like a budding schitzo with very real mental problems...."

Agreed. Anyone who descends so rapidly into babbling inchoate rage when his nonsense is not taken as wisdom is well on his way to the funny farm. Could be he's already a resident at one with internet privileges but I doubt it. I suspect said privileges would be closely monitored and his constant threats of physical violence would get them revoked.

Apparently commenter "J" never read Against All Hope by Armando Valladares (or anything else by Cuban refugees). Many Cubans opposed Batista and were initially sympathetic to the revolution, but then Castro turned out to be a communist and then a dictator and they realized that was not what they wanted. And then those who spoke out ended up in his notorious prisons.

Allow me to try: "vanguard of the revolution" is a Marxist concept that is used by Sayyid Qutb to define the posture and historical position of the Mohammedan Brotherhood. (Lenin was a bit more pragmatic and simply saw a tight group of fearless power-and wealth-seekers cloaking their aim in communist rhetoric while murdering their way into positions desired. Hitler, Castro, Allende, Kaddafi, Obama, Zelaya, Ortega, Chaves, Assads and the IRGC, all leftists, try to blend, in this respect, the approaches of Marx and Qutb on the one hand (idealistic/utopian rhetoric) and Lenin on the other (termination of opponents before and after securing the mechanisms of government).

All of that is cloaked in ideology (social justice, economic justice, peace and freedom) and community organizing (vanguard "activist" cells in local churches) developed in South America as "liberation theology" and imported in the USA by, prominently but not only, Saul Alinsky and James Cone (passed to his protege Jeremiah Wright), the latter adding a racial component, "black liberation theology," which aligned it Cone and Wright with the so-called "Nation of Islam."

In the 60s, the movement to clean up industrial waste was co-opted by Alinsky and even older-school leftists, sourced from New England Unitarians and Congregationalists, leaving us today with "eco-nazis" in lock-step with left-communist power and wealth seekers. A racial component has been added to that as well.

The coherent policy is left-communist aspiration for domination anywhere and everywhere. Kaddafi opposed the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda, who are supported by the international leftist consortiums so long as they don't attack those consortiums directly. That is why he went down. al Qaeda's "mistake" was attacking its sister movements and sponsors. That is why they are hunted and killed.

But al Qaeda is not more than a proxy for nation-states, prominently Saddam's Iraq and later the IRGC's Iran and all along the Saudis as long as al Qaeda kept it out of the kingdom (which they didn't do, so the Saudis hit them).

The coherent policy is left-communist ideology and power seeking. It is a cruel hag with claws deeply embedded in many nations. Obama is one of its claw sets. But only one.

You know what it boils down to? for a certain type of person - think J, AL, garage - the Left is sexy. Torture in dungeons? What's that compared to the promise of heaven on earth? It's all about the orgasmic rhetoric.

Excellent point. I think the answer comprises two simultaneous phenomena.

First and foremost, the goal of domination is the ultimate concern. Everything else (abortion, feminism, etc.) is an expendable detail. Ultimately, the social goals are unimportant. Proximately, they make good cover for the domination agenda.

Second, the alliance is temporary only. The social goals of an alliance member are not to figure in the policies of the alliance member holding the balance of power in the final domination structure. The MB and social leftists in America ally to remove and replace the US economic system, ways of life and Constitution, but one will suppress the other if either achieves the final goal of domination. I expect MB would prevail in any punch-out with social leftists in America.

There is also this to be considered: sodomy, to include with boys, is a powerful, universal habit in the Middle East. The MB's and the Iranian's rhetorical theological puritanism does not match their "cultures'" facts. Afghans seem less hypocritical in this regard but only less, and they are arguably world champions with respect to the universality of their sodomy. It is my understanding social leftists in America are aware of this phenomenon and more than willing to wink wink it.

Scott M said...Seriously...send him an email and give him your sincere sentiments. I'm sure it will pay back big dividends.

I'm curious. Why would you advocate doing this? Given his volatility, what could be gained by initiating a sidebar with him?

He is not a troll. At least he is not a leftist acting the way he does to troll conservative sites. The way he acts is the way he is.

For example, I have a rather rigorous approach to logic and more than a passing interest in philosophy has fallen out of that. Now and then I visit sites where some very knowledgeable people discuss it. J - same distinctive tweety grammar, same wannabe edgy persona though I did not know his name or recall his email - does or did frequent that sort of site also. To put it bluntly, he acted no differently than he does here. As you can imagine, he got old fast.

So again, what would or could be gained by starting a direct dialogue with him? Any value he adds to any discussion is far out-weighed by his manic delivery once he slips into that mode and he ALWAYS does.

Ah. Not sure that will work. He's found a site that doesn't ban (though I have seen some of his more rabid comments removed by the administrator here).

He'll beshat Althouse until some other shiny object distracts him and the adults here will have to suffer him for the duration. He could be shunned away, but that requires a tacit agreement to completely ignore him - don't feed the troll - and that never works. He'll taunt and threaten until someone engages him. That goes hand and hand with the persona. He will however, leave a thread in peace if he's not taken seriously in engaging him, but rather thoroughly mocked. That also goes hand in hand with the persona.

"Indeed, the desire to move beyond the Zelaya era was almost universal in our meetings. Almost.

In a day packed with meetings, we met only one person in Honduras who opposed Mr. Zelaya's ouster, who wishes his return, and who mystifyingly rejects the legitimacy of the November elections: U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens.

When I asked Ambassador Llorens why the U.S. government insists on labeling what appears to the entire country to be the constitutional removal of Mr. Zelaya a "coup," he urged me to read the legal opinion drafted by the State Department's top lawyer, Harold Koh. As it happens, I have asked to see Mr. Koh's report before and since my trip, but all requests to publicly disclose it have been denied.

On the other hand, the only thorough examination of the facts to date—conducted by a senior analyst at the Law Library of Congress—confirms the legality and constitutionality of Mr. Zelaya's ouster. (It's on the Internet here .)

Unlike the Obama administration's snap decision after June 28, the (Library of Congress) Law Library report is grounded in the facts of the case and the intricacies of Honduran constitutional law. So persuasive is the report that after its release, the New Republic's James Kirchick concluded in an Oct. 3 article that President Obama's hastily decided Honduras policy is now "a mistake in search of a rationale."